Throughout the Green Hope gardens there are inviting places you can see from the house or office windows. There’s an adirondack chair under the spreading branches of an oak tree, a welcoming spot under a friendly cluster of a half dozen plum trees, and a weathered wooden bench overlooking one of the goldfish ponds. In summer this bench by the pond basks in the sunlight with fragrant herbs all round, but even in winter it’s a place to sit and watch the mysteries of ice on a small pond.

The Angels and I have composed these moments in the garden and others like them to give all of us looking out the windows what I call mind journeys. Some days, we just don’t get a moment to sit in the oak’s cooling shade or watch the fish in the pond, but when we look out at these scenes, our mind goes there and we feel refreshed.

One of the reasons we put our “Pelaton,” the free standing screened in sleeping porch, right where it sits just at the bottom of the main vegetable garden and next to the Rose garden is because I wanted to be able to look up from the kitchen sink and take a mind journey to this wonderful place, even when Rhino and I are too busy to leave the sink. Mind journeys are one of the underlying principles at work in the gardens here and one of the great solaces of my busy life, but today I thought about a different kind of mind journey.

When I walk into my husband Jim’s sixth grade classroom, it’s also a mind journey. I am greeted by an abstract painting of a tropical landscape and numerous tropical trees and plants. Their leafy green welcome begins this journey for me, but it’s the maps that Jim has covering his walls with that really get me traveling.

His maps aren’t like those ones on rolls that disappeared up into the top of the blackboard when I was a kid in grammar school. His enormous world maps are always on display. They are laminated and can be drawn on and erased, drawn on and erased. And Jim has drawn all over them again and again. They have all kinds of arrows and squiggles and remarks. Some lines follow rivers. I wonder as I look at these river squiggles, “Was that the route of Lewis and Clark’s expedition?” Some lines block out regions as if to explain geologic or political changes. “They must be talking about the Civil War,” I think. Some marks spill out to float across various oceans. All of the marks suggest exploration. All of them make me curious. The maps look like trip tiks after the trips, all marked up in a way that helps you remember the journey better. This coffee spill happened in Rapid City South Dakota. That sort of thing.

I know that Jim takes his kids on mind journeys when they are working with the maps. And the mind journeys keep going, because I am still journeying when I look at the maps long after the classes are over. I wonder not only about the places on the map but also how all the marks on the maps came to be. What were the conversations going on when all that magic marker got used?

In the far corner is my favorite map area. This is where Jim makes big hand drawn maps dealing with whatever he is reading aloud to his class. He loves read aloud. So far this year he has read The Giver by Lois Lowry as well as Roald Dahl’s two autobiographies Boy and Going Solo. Going Solo takes place in Africa so I bet there was a map of Africa in this corner when his students were listening to that story. Right now he is reading Little Tree by Forrest Carter. He reads this every year and tells his students before he begins that he is going to cry at the end. He always does cry. I think of this as about the best gift you can give sixth graders, getting to see a grown man cry. I imagine his tears must encourage them to stay in their hearts and stay true to their feelings as they journey on from sixth grade into our big, messy and glorious world.

Often Jim reads Bill Bryson’s romp about the Appalachian trail, A Walk in the Woods, though as with many of the books he reads, he has to do a lot of fast editing of swear words with this one. He has a gorgeous long skinny map of the Appalachian Trail to hang when he’s reading this. It primes his kids for a trip he takes them on in the spring. They go to the White Mountains for a intensive learning and camping experience on the Appalachian Trail.

Another perennial favorite is The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. Sometimes I visit when Jim is reading The Long Walk aloud to his kids. Then the hand drawn map shows Slavomir’s perilous and real life journey of escape from a siberian work camp down along Lake Baikal, through the Gobi desert, and across the Himalayans into India. This is an epic story with an astounding map.

Kids in our present school structure spend a lot of time boxed up in one room. All the mind journeys into other worlds whether they are prompted by beautiful art, a bower of tropical plants, a plethora of maps, read alouds, or watching their teacher cry help to transform what could be a confining and dry experience into an expansive meaningful adventure.

So, I was chagrined when Jim came home last night with news of the 20% rule and other new edicts. Jim’s classroom is twenty feet from an outdoor exit. He has two enormous windows with four five foot casement windows opening onto solid ground level earth. In almost any circumstance short of a nuclear attack, I find it hard to believe his kids could not safely and swiftly exit the building by door or window in less than a minute or two, but new concern about the fire hazard of paper on the walls leaves him having to remove maps and posters so only 20% of his walls are covered with paper. His wooden walls are also to be painted battleship grey this week because the wood is not considered fire retardant enough and the school can only afford battleship grey paint. Hello! Do they want the kids to wear correctional institution uniforms too?

For many years Jim had an enormous sectional couch in his read aloud nook with many soft chairs and cushions so everyone had a comfortable spot. When he returned to school this fall he was told that some organization formed to protect teacher’s safety had mandated that his couch and the cushions had to be removed from his classroom to “protect him from lice.” I am not kidding. Though he felt he could manage a lice infestation without risk to his personal safety, other more official folks felt differently. The couches moved to our son, Ben’s new apartment in the dorm where hoards of high school students now happily hunker down for a visit with their dorm advisor, Ben. And Jim’s read aloud corner is less cozy. Trees and maps but no pillows.

Now this? Will he have to get roll up maps and hide the world away after each social studies class? Will his hand drawn maps have to be taken down each day so no one can take a mind journey to Lake Baikal except during read aloud?

Jim will think of ways to keep his kids connected to a bigger world and their imaginations no matter what, but these new edicts made me mad!

Why don’t all these officials get busy with real problems like global warming. It was 63 degrees on the top of Hogback Mountain in the Green Mountains at midnight this past weekend. I was driving back from seeing Lizzy in a dance concert in Bennngton, Vermont. It was so warm we drove with our windows down. If these officials need things to fuss about, let it be about real problems like climate change, not this other kind of mind numbing micro management of young people’s lives.

I think I need to go to my sink, wash a tea cup with Rhino, and look out the window to take a mind journey to the Pelaton! Here and down at Jim’s school they still haven’t outlawed windows. But then, Jim isn’t home from school yet so I might have spoken too soon.

Here was a question in today’s email. I have included my answer to this Green Hope friend’s query because of the Angels’ suggestion which felt so right for so many dogs.

“Hello,
We have Golden Armour. My dog Jake (3 year old yellow lab) has been demonstrating anxious behavior when away at doggie daycare-wanting to be with ther owner and pushing forcefully at doors to be with her. He also wouldn’t go outside when they put new wood chips down on the ground. Further, he has been getting up on the couch, which he is in not allowed to do when we are in another room or upstairs. The day care owner also shared that the increased number of dogs at daycare makes him more anxious.

I was wondering if you folks had any recommendations?”

My response was, “I am glad you have Golden Armor. I would most certainly keep giving this to Jake so that he can buffer out as much of the overstimulation at doggie day care as he can. You might also consider Neediness and Anxiety for Jake.

The Angels suggested that you give Jake a good brushing with a few drops of the Flower Essences in his brush when he gets home from day care each day. They offered that this might help him shed his stress as well as the anxious energy of the place and the other dogs. They noted that this would help him really GET that he is home and therefore free to relax and let go of his anxiety.

While this suggestion felt very calming, grounding and centering, the Angels noted that Grounding Essence could be added to this group if he still acts agitated after a few weeks of the brushing, if this trio isn’t quite enough. I suspect he really misses you and this would help him to reconnect and feel your love and share his love for you at the day’s end before routines of the evening must prevail.”

Inquiring minds want to know how Rhino did with the Thanksgiving dishes.

First of all, he was well prepared. He did the math. He knew what it was going to take to get the job done.

He had the dish soap AND he had the Rhino power.

He also had a babe to watch him wash. He received some much needed wall art AND a mail order girlfriend from Green Hope Farm friend Cher Bartlett in Atlanta. This really eased him through the two and a half bottles of dish soap he blew through during the Thanksgiving weekend. And to be frank, he was not heavy on the soap. This was a legitimate consumption of dish soap.

Today, he and his girlfriend escaped for a mini break holiday to the crow’s nest apartment in the barn, the spot formerly inhabited by Ben. Looks like things are going well. Jewelry has even been exchanged, a crystal rhino kindness of matchmaker Cher. I am thinking they may be AWOL for awhile. I am thinking this means take out tonight and paper plates.

We haven’t had any stretches of cold weather yet. Thin films of ice have formed on the garden ponds a few times only to melt by midday. Moderate weather has lingered so long I even got the last garden that needed mulch hay all covered and laid to bed for the winter. The gardens look so tidy, its like a Martha Stewart TV shoot.

It’s more than a little odd to be outside without a jacket this time of year. As I spread the mulch hay, I actually got hot in my shirtsleeves. No one has begun to fight about who “owns” the favorite mittens or hats this winter. The teenagers are still wearing flip flops and crocs without socks. I am tempted to remark how nicely global warming is working out for us in the north country, but it really is not.

I am sure this is confusing to every bit of our natural environment. I can go out and pluck a spring Flower to make my point. The deep blue spring flowering Scilla Sibericas are popping their heads up, ready to bloom right now and each day I look nervously at the Snowdrops that threaten to join them. Then there is the self seeded lettuce growing besides the door into our office. A head of lettuce harvested in December will be a first.

I hope humankind gets its collective acts together to stop all this. Much as I don’t like our winters of old, I would have to be quite the egomaniac to think the whole world should shift its climate to improve my backyard micro-climate. When I moved to the North Pole twenty six years ago, I believed that if I didn’t like the climate, I would need to move, not look to fossil fuels to get things cooking.

I guess we are going to find out either how resilient our dear Earth is or how fast us humans can collectively wake up and take care of each other and this precious planet we share. I hope we wake up.

After I wrote about Thanksgiving menus, the emails I received in response moved my thoughts away from caloric intake towards an awareness of how challenging this holiday is for many people and how many ways you bravely forge ahead to create a more inclusive sense of family during a holiday that can get bogged down in traditional and isolating notions about what family is.

In other words, your emails reminded me that courage is more the theme of the day than condiments.

Many wrote about gatherings with friends instead of family because of emotional as well as geographical distances from blood relatives. I loved the way you made the meal a celebration of a larger definition of family with mention of what the dogs had and guest lists that were bouquets of diversity.

You created occasions all over America that changed the status quo with redefined notions of how to celebrate our common humanity as well as what to cook. By the time I was through reading your emails, I wanted to sprinkle Fringe Tree Flower Essence over every dish served in America to support your grass roots effort to expand our notions of family and celebration. Vive the Oneness!

When people described a menu to me, it was usually an aside to the main story of making the best of a complicated situation. I heard about side dishes boiled with salted beef from a Newfoundland man a long way from his North Atlantic home, maple pecan cheesecake made by a single mom from the south, now living in New York and facing Thanksgiving without her children, a dinner that was take out Chinese because the apartment renovation wasn’t going so well, a meal delayed because the oven died, potluck gatherings of friends with everyone bringing their favorite Thanksgiving treat, memories of eating too much of Aunt Shirley’s marshmallow sweet potato pie or too many black olives from the ubiquitous crystal glass relish dish, an Oklahoma Thanksgiving in New England with the cornbread stuffing cooked in Grandma’s oval dish, mention of many chocolate cream pies for children and last but not least, I heard tales about fried turkeys. There were some wild stories about this new take on turkey. All I can say after reading your tales is that if you decide to ever fry a turkey, call a friend to talk you down or an insurance agent.

One interesting menu description came from a young man who reported that his family usually had tortilla and cream cheese pinwheels appetizers, turkey with loganberry sauce, hot chili gravy, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, flan, and glogg, a drink of fruits and spices fermented in vodka then added to hot mulled wine. This menu was a glorious melting pot of his Mexican and Swedish heritage, yet when all was said and done, he talked more about the fact that he could not get home to his family in Southern California for the holiday, separated as he was by a three thousand mile geographical distance.

At Green Hope Farm, the yeast of the holiday weekend came from the visitors in our midst. They gave everything a sparkle and a sense of occasion. Michael and Catherine arrived with fantastic treats from Brooklyn, even beautiful dog biscuits from a Pawtisserie. Together we walked and talked and laughed and made a mess of the kitchen for Rhino for four days. At the meal itself we had much of Jim’s family and more lovely visitors originally from England and Canada. This helped us not take ourselves too seriously. The evening ended with a dance party in the bottling room with all the little people whirled around until bedtime by various big adults. I thank everyone who was part of our celebration. You gave us to a chance to feel a wonderfully expansive sense of family. I thank you for your willingness to help us open the throttle on any exclusive definition of family and let it rip.

Actually, I thank all the folks who were the yeast in the dough of other people’s tribal gatherings. As someone put it, “We all have to be our best selves when there is company and that’s a good thing”.

I heard from one Green Hope Farm friend who was invited into a tightly knit family group with what she felt was a sort of a “pity for a single woman without family” invite. Her story of the day unfolded with painful moments in which various members of the host family made it clear they really did not want to make the effort with a new person. Yet this woman kept seeking to connect with someone at the gathering and finally found a delighted welcoming presence in the family’s ninety five year old grandmother. At first she thought the woman’s penetrating looks bore the same message that she felt the rest were
thinking such as “Who is this person without any family on this family occasion?”. But by the end of the meal the grandmother said to her, “You know, I feel like I know you. Do you know what I mean?”

What a gift she gave this gathering by being brave enough to cross the empty social space that sometimes exists when people make an offer for the sake of being kind but haven’t quite inhabited their best selves enough to move into a state of heartfelt inclusion. Her willingness to include them in her heart, even when she had none of the social power in the situation, was a gift to them all. And the grandmother knew it!